


Did you Kill the Joker?

by JustSomeStories



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bat Brothers, Bat Family, Damian Wayne is Nightwing, Damian Wayne is the oldest, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Jason Todd is Robin, Reverse Robins, Reverse Robins AU, Tim Drake is Red Hood, Tim Drake is resurrected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeStories/pseuds/JustSomeStories
Summary: Damian Wayne killed the Joker.He knows it, his friends know it, his family knows it. No one can prove it, but they all know.Damian Wayne killed the Joker, because the Joker killed Tim Drake.Now he has to deal a worsening relationship with his father, a new Robin, and the return of the brother he thought he lost.A reverse Robins AU in which Damian is the eldest, Tim Drake is the one who died, and Jason Todd’s the Robin in his shadow.





	1. My Replacement

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys like it :)

“Do not pet Pennyworth as though you are worthy of his attention.” Damian held Tim’s forgotten hoodie from his last un-welcomed visit at arms’ length; his nose scrunched up at it. “Much like your position as my replacement, it is unwarranted and vaguely insulting.”

Tim’s hand hovered over the cat. The purring started up like a resurrected motorboat when Tim resumed petting. Damian’s scowl deepened as Tim scooped up Pennyworth snuggling his face into the cat’s fur.

“You’re just mad he loves me more,” Tim said.

Pennyworth looked at him with annoyance: _is this imbecile for real?_ Damian concurred with the cat; the embrace between the child and feline was far too drawn out.

Much like Tim’s visit.

“I find it unlikely anyone could love you, Drake.”

Pennyworth squirmed out of Tim’s arms jumping to the floor where he wound his way around the child’s legs. Pennyworth’s tail stood straight up, his purring increasing.

“You do,” Tim said.

“A gross misinterpretation of my feelings.”

Tim had been wearing a fake mustache for reasons Damian had not yet asked. It would likely send the younger boy into a tangent of which Damian would have to listen. If he didn’t then Tim would pout, leading to another drawn-out situation.

Damian did his best to ignore Tim twirling it like a mid-century detective about to announce -as Jonathan would say- ‘who dun’ it’. Similar to his conversations with Tim, Damian did not ask of Jonathan’s grammar choices.

“Liar.” Tim’s announcement was far from eloquent.

“You will find I hate you for many reasons,” He draped Tim’s face with the hoodie. “Primarily, I am not a laundromat.”

Tim stayed silent, pulling the hoodie off his head to look at it. Damian observed the logo with mild distaste, like a child eating broccoli for the first time. It was Batman’s logo colored red over black cloth. His Father has always told him not to wear memorabilia in public lest he desired to get tattooed with holes.

It would seem Tim didn’t listen to his Father. Damian wallowed that he should have burned the hoodie -as originally planned- rather than giving it back Tim. Prevented it or the child wearing it from being targeted by a clown or oversized reptile.

“But if I forget stuff, I have an excuse to come back,” Tim said.

“Is that your convoluted reason for making a mess of my home?” Damian asked.

Tim’s calculating eyes held the same gleam Damian inferred they’d had when Tim had first given Batman his ultimatum: their identities. The equivalent of robbing a store, but asking for a loving family instead of money.

“Are you going to help me with the Penguin tonight?”

“Most likely not.”

Tim made for the couch where Pennyworth had jumped up to. His hand moved to drop the hoodie and Damian deeply inhaled. His soul shattering as the fabric got closer to the ratty couch.

“Timothy Drake, if you dare put that insufferable propaganda on my couch I will toss you out the window.”

“But it doesn’t go with my guise.”

Damian’s brain shut down. He was suspect that Tim was sharing his minimal brain cells with Kid Flash and the new Superbly, but it was all hypothetical. He hadn’t expected confirmation.

“Is that why you’re wearing a fake mustache? Drake, you are eight, it will not fool anyone.”

“I’m not eight,” Tim straightened his back. Tim was short and skinny; if Damian had been on speaking terms with his Father he would have commanded more of Alfred’s cookies for Tim. Perhaps he could still call Alfred; the two had not spoken recently.

“Tt, could have fooled me.” Damian gathered Pennyworth in his arms, moving to sit down on the couch. “Nevertheless, I would prefer if you did not wear that mustache while using my identity. Honor is tied to the title, Drake. Something you know little of.”

“I need the mustache for my guise,” Tim sat on the couch beside Damian. He raised an eyebrow at Tim trying to recall when the boy had become comfortable in his presence. “You could help. Nightwing and Robin it’d be fun-“ Damian scowled and Tim backtracked. “-strategically sensible.”

“I would prefer to choose which shade of gray to wear to your funeral rather than- what is it you are doing again?” Damian scratched under Pennyworth’s chin, despite the purrs, his cat jumped from his grip to curl up next to Tim. “Treacherous creature.”

“I’m breaking into the Iceberg Lounge to gain intel with the use of a carefully crafted guise,” Tim began twirling the mustache again. “You’d get to knock some heads in,” Tim added quickly at Damian’s annoyed glower.

“Or I could tell my father of your idiotic plan before you are impaled.”

“Don’t tell B!” Tim jumped from the couch causing Pennyworth to scurry back into Damian’s lap. “I’m telling you this in confidence.”

“You over-estimate how much that means to me. I care very little, Drake, if I must outline the subtext for you.” Damian said.

Tim leaned on the couch making it squeak dangerously. His eyes retained that same analytical sheen that suggested an opposing hypothesis. It was unfounded in any real data and was telling of his father’s inadequate training.

“Tt.”

Tim paced around the small studio apartment. It was dinghy with little semblance of breathing space. As Tim galavanted around the apartment he would climb over chairs and tables that got in his way. Damian watched with narrowed eyes.

After nearly shattering a flower vase holding three yellow petunias he paused looking back at Damian. Tim sat down on the kitchen table with crossed legs, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Why do you pretend to hate me?” Tim asked. “I connect what you say to what you do and there’s no intersection. I made some graphs if you want to see.”

Damian glowered. “I do not.” He scratched behind Pennyworth’s ear. “There is no pretending about it. I have a list of reasons if you wish to read them or I can recite it verbally; I took the time to memorize it,” He cleared his throat. “One: you are my replacement,” He paused. “I would suggest you remain sitting, it is an extensive list.”

“See? This is what I mean-“ Tim crawled off the kitchen table and inched back towards the sofa.

“Two: you are a persistent nuisance.”

“-you say all these things-“ Pennyworth perked up and was peaking at Tim as he got closer; his purring magnified.

“Three: I saw you drink milk out of the carton once,” Alfred had to deal with this imbecile on a daily basis. Damian’s heart went out to the elderly man, he deserved so much better than caretaker to his replacement.

“-but you don’t mean them,” Tim crawled over the backside of the couch flopping upside down beside him. The child quickly righted himself out and smoothed his mustache.

“Four: your face makes me want to gouge my eyes out,” Pennyworth crawled from his lap back to Tim. Tim began petting the cat, his eyes never losing their analytical glimmer.

“You say you hate me-“

“Five: you do not clean up your laundry. This is circled red on the list,” Damian scrunched his nose while looking at the abandoned hoodie.

“-but treat me like a brother,” Tim paused in petting Pennyworth gaining an annoying meow from the narcissist feline.

“Six: you believe you are apart of my family.”

Tim rested a hand on Damian’s forearm and quickly withdrew it at his glare. Instead, Tim just remained far too close. “Are you afraid?” Tim asked, his eyes full of their perceptive annoyance.

“Seven: you- am I what?” Damian spluttered in his counting. Goddamn Batman and his goddamn detectives. “I am no such thing. It would be a lapse in judgment to assume so. As a son of Batman and estranged heir to the League of Assassins, I feel no fear.”

Tim stared up at him, his eyebrows turned up in questioning, making him look ridiculous behind the surprisingly quality made fake mustache. Tim was not endearing. Not at all. Tim’s questing look broke into a small grin that held less charm than his quirked eyebrows.

“I’m sure you don’t,” he patted Damian’s arm and Pennyworth’s head before crawling off the couch with as little grace as he had entered it. In his floundering, the hoodie was knocked off and landed in a pile on his floor. “I’ll give you a mission report tomorrow.”

“Please don’t,” Damian said. Tim pouted and Damian groaned. “I will be at work, telling Brown would be more advantageous; details would be lost to me.”

Tim made for the open window he had used to break in. He paused halfway in the frame as though waiting for something.

Damian increased his glower. “Do not tarnish my legacy by doing something idiotic, Drake.”

Tim grinned in the window. “Please, everyone knows I’m the smart Robin,” Tim jumped from the window sill, still smiling.

Damian pushed his head out the window, yelling after him. “You are no such thing!” It fell on lost ears. Only the pigeon roosting outside his window sill -whom he had named Batbird- could hear. She was not a fan of the rude awakening and tweeted her discrepancies at Damian from her perch atop her eggs: Robin, Birdgirl, and Superbird.

Back inside the apartment, Damian picked up the fallen hoodie. If Tim didn’t return for it by Sunday he’d either burn it or donate it to the local animal shelter. He hung it up in his closet before heading to sleep.

He had work tomorrow as well as likely getting his ear talked off by a small child about an infiltration done without Batman’s influence. Tomorrow would be a long day.

Though for reasons Damian did not suspect.

* * *

  
Ten hours later Damian got a phone call while at work. For the past six months, he’d been working as an illustrator for an indie animation studio while taking art classes on the side. His grandfather would have been disgusted with the field he’d chosen, his father- Damian wasn’t sure how he would have felt, but Alfred had been supportive.

He paused in the sketch he’d been doing: a proposal for a coming of age story. He’d gotten most of the preliminary sketches done, his favorite being of the main character: a young boy with inquisitive eyes that knew so much yet so little.

A juxtaposition he planned to explore if the story was picked up upon. Before that he’d have to work on the expressions of the other characters; most specifically, the older sibling. He found the expression gyrating too far towards disdain or fondness, never falling at equilibrium.

He pulled the phone to his ear. ”Hello Pennyworth,” He said with a smile. “We have not spoken enough since I left. How is Titus? Does he still snarl at Drake or has the imbecile swayed-“

He felt the tears through the phone; Alfred’s sobs made them tangible. He crumpled up the sketch he’d been doing as he’d drawn a long line diagonally across it on accident.

“Is everything alright? Do you need me to dismember someone?” Making Alfred cry equivocated to a war crime in Damian’s world. “Father would be displeased but-“.

Alfred cut him off, speaking through choked out wails. “It’s Master Timothy, he- he was at the Iceberg Lounge and-“

Damian wasn’t sure when the phone fell to the ground; he wasn’t sure when he fell to the ground. All he knew was that people were peaking over their cubicles towards him.  
  
“Are you okay?” The woman adjacent to him asked over their separating wall. Damian hadn’t bothered to learn her name, although she had provided him with a fruitcake upon his first day.

“I have no care for your condolences,” Damian said with a huff. He picked the phone up, thankful that Alfred was still on the line and left into the hallway aware of the stares following his back.

He made his way into the stairwell although uncomfortable with how his voice now echoed inside it. He listened to Alfred’s breathing in between the man’s tears. “Who did it?” Damian asked after a moment. His hand clenched at his side.

“The Joker.”

His nails dug into his palms. The tension in his shoulders nearly popping as he gulped down breaths. He sunk to the floor once more; the wall cool again his back. He didn’t have any suits. He’d donated them all after he and his father’s falling out. They’d reminded him too much of the stingy galas full of stingy people. He’d, oh god he’d have to buy one for… for Tim’s-

“Okay,” Damian said. He didn’t know what else to say. What else was there to say? “It will be alright, Pennyworth.” That was not what there was to say. A blatant lie. He pulled his knees in. “I- can you?” He took a deep breath. “Can you take me suit shopping?”

“Of course, Master Damian.”

He stayed on the line with Alfred until he got onto his motorcycle. After regretfully informing the man he had to go, he hung up and drove off. He didn’t pause along the way, not as he passed the leaving Blüdhaven sign, not as passed the welcome to Gotham sign, not even as he passed a Wayne Enterprises building.

He had something to do and he knew what everyone would assume. He just drove faster.

* * *

  
The following morning, Damian awoke to a shadowed figure hanging above his head. “Good morning to you too, Father.” Damian slid out of bed, his throat scratchy. He headed towards the sink but was pulled back.

His father pushed him against the wall, waving a newspaper in his face. Damian couldn’t read the words from how much it moved, but he knew what it said. Damian glared at his father’s cowled eyes.

“We have a line-“ He growled in his standard Batman voice. “-that we do not cross.”

Damian snatched the paper with one hand and pushed Batman off with another. He read the title. The words held a victorious and vengeful edge that left him feeling no less empty.

 _The Joker Found Dead, Causes Unknown_ and underneath it, in a smaller subtitle, the somehow more fitting words: _Gotham Rejoices._

The article fluttered from his hands onto the ground. “You think I did it.” He blinked at his father.”I understand that you are the world’s greatest detective, but you are forgetting probable cause.”

“He killed Tim,” Batman said.

“I despised of Drake, you knew that. As such, I have no reason to avenge my replacement,” He pushed past his father grabbing a glass from his cabinet and filling it up with water. “Would you like anything to drink?” He asked.

His father remained stoic, a set of clenched gauntlets. Damian briefly peaked out the window to catch sight of Batbird sitting atop her eggs as though everything was right in the world; as though Damian’s reality hadn’t just shattered.

“You presence is unsettling Pennyworth. You are permitted to leave,” Pennyworth was sleeping on the couch out of sight, but Damian felt if the cat had been awake he would have been feeling similar to Damian.

“Alfred said you were mournful,” His father took a step towards him, his hands extended. “You loved him; he was your brother.”

“A fallen comrade. Of course, I mourned for what little respect I had.” He sipped the water. He wanted to gulp it down and bring relief to his burning throat, but it would be too telling in front of his father. The sips were painfully slow.

“Tell me you did it. Tell the truth.”

So slow. He concentrated on not letting his hands shake as he took one minuscule sip after the other. “What are you implying, Father? Please just come out and ask it rather than making me assume.”

“Did you kill the Joker?”

He took a longer sip of water, aware of his father’ pressing eyes. “No, Father, I did not. Despite my hatred for the clown, my love for Drake was insufficient to push me past your moral line,” The cup wavered despite his efforts. “I may not be pleased with his death, but I did not love him.”

“Damian?”

“I hated him.”

It was a punch to his gut to say, but his Grandfather would have been proud of his execution. Said with a certainty that could even sway the Dark Knight himself, his own father. Batman left soon afterwards; as soon as he was out of sight Damian chugged the water.

He headed to the sink to refill it and gurgled it again. No matter how many cups he had, the burning seemed ever present. After his sixth cup, he set the cup down going to check his phone.

It was blown up with messages. A ‘ _please, tell me you didn’t_ ’ from Jonathan, a ‘ _please, tell me you did’_  from Brown, and an ‘ _I know you did, please come home_ ’ from Alfred.

He dropped the phone back onto the futon he used as a bed. He sat down, grabbing the black and red hoodie that’d been left behind without an annoying child to ever pop in and reclaim it.

When Damian had driven from Blüdhaven to Gotham, he knew what they would all assume: that he did it. He hugged the hoodie staring out past the window where the pigeon’s chirps were followed by three youthful tweets. The mother’s babies must have hatched.

Pennyworth got up from his slumber, stretching before jumping up on the bed to console Damian. He wondered if the cat would ever understand the boy’s absence. Would it be appropriate to bring a cat to a funeral? Pennyworth cared for Tim, surely he wouldn’t be too out of place.

He fell back on his bed, still holding the jacket tight. Pennyworth crawled on top of him pawing at his cheek and letting out muted meows.

Yes, they all assumed; they all assumed right.

What now?


	2. Bowling: A Tarnished Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph and Damian go bowling. Jon shows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how it is :)

The iron in the air mixed with the scent of artificial flowers and apples- perhaps a hint of cinnamon. Damian had been unaware of the Bath and Body Works present in Gotham -one that would likely skip town once its cracked windows and crushed merchandise were found- and he wished he’d pushed the Scarecrow goons into a different store.

The metallic scent of blood, he found, did not pair well with the fruity and floral scents of the broken perfumes crushed underfoot and the tossed aside candles. His only solace in the desolate wasteland of botanic origins was that the scum beneath him had to experience it as well.

And they were the ones bleeding.

He grasped one by the collar heaving him out of the Sweet Pea fragrance he’d been marinating in. ”I won’t lie and say I won’t hurt you -it isn’t from my sense of honor, but rather, how little think of you- nonetheless, I am in need of information. It will hurt less if you tell me.”

The masked man tensed. His lips -though not visible- were tightly sealed. Any sensible human would have revealed the truth or at least squeaked out some details. This man though stayed static. A casualty of being in Gotham: the low-life wasn’t sensible.

He hated being in Gotham.

A place where fog and smog mixed in the smokestack sky while blood ran alongside rainwater in the street-side gutters. A place where the criminally condemned celebrated spring breaks from Arkham more often than the sun peaked over the soot-colored clouds. A place where little birds fell.

Yes, he hated Gotham.

Gotham’s stench of nostalgia wafted as strongly as the assorted fragrance assaulting his nose in the desolate Bath and Bodyworks.

It held roots to his first time trying hot chocolate (with tiny marshmallows) and fresh baby carrots. The sentiment of gargoyles grinning overhead made his heart tang in a way his mother would have chastised. There, in Gotham, lay a hug of darkness: ever present and ever warm- like a toting butler or persistent child.

Maybe that made him hate it more.

“Tell me what happened before I gut you,” Plastic crunched behind him as a set of boots made their way towards him. He tightened his grip on the man’s collar. He knew those footsteps. He shook the man.”Speak, you imbecile.”

The man remained stoic. The set of boots did not.

”Trying out a new smoke bomb?” Stephanie kicked aside a plastic bottle. It clattered beside one Scarecrow’s men. “I gotta say, Juniper Breeze does not intimidate me.”

Damian had discovered upon his last meeting with Stephanie that a specific vein right above his left eyebrow would pulsate when she spoke; a string not even his father had managed to strum. She was profound in her ability to make him hear nails on a chalkboard by just being in the same room.

Impressive, really.

Unfortunately, she was a sufficient fighter -just sufficient; he’d have to be skinned before he’d grit out such a sentiment where she could hear- and a close friend of Tim’s. As such, he found himself begrudgingly accepting her help on occasion. _Only_ on occasion.

Now was not one of those occasions.

”Go away, you purple baboon, I am busy.”

Damian’s gloved fingers pinched alongside the collarbone of the thug and dug down till the man winced. Crane’s thug had giggled during his and Stephanie’s exchange and Damian wasn’t about to lose what progress he’d made. One didn’t simply suffer in a floral wasteland and _not_ get results.

”Ooooh,” she said, waltzing up behind him. “Purple baboon, switching it up- I like it. I’ll also accept mauve marsupial or purple people eater,” Her voice -though still mocking- lacked the usual edge that made his brain willingly eject itself into a vat of acid.

Any intimidation he’d created in the goon had since disintegrated in the acid as well. Said man’s shoulders bounced with a muted chuckle as his masked eyes danced between Damian and Stephanie: Nightwing and Batgirl. Damian dropped the man but kept a boot on his crumpled form.

“Why are you here?” He asked. “Are you fulfilling a quota?”

She tilted her head, reminiscent to a golden retriever tricked by someone fake throwing a tennis ball. Normally she’d have bounced on her heels as well, but, besides the head-turning, she stayed still: a robber caught by a flashlight.

“Quota of what?”

“Ruining my life.”

Stephanie snorted. ”While that is a highlight of my life, consider me on break. I’m here for other reasons,” She looked around at the many men and women knocked out around the store, the only conscious one wiggling under Damian’s shoe.

She clapped her hands together. “One, I’m making sure you don’t kill anyone else, because bossman’s already mad pissed at you.” 

“I didn’t kill the Joker.”

”Sure thing and my full name are Alfie Penny-pincher,” Damian’s nose flared and she quickly continued. “Chillax, Brodsky, I’m not mad at you. Opposite actually, I also came to say thanks-“ Her eyes dropped into the ground alongside the pep in her voice. “-for doing what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He reasserted. “Now, you have said your wrongly placed thanks and fulfilled your tasks, so you can go.”

Damian looked down at the man who’d been chucking a lot less after Stephanie had brought up the accusations of murder.

“Nuh un. Actions speaker louder than words.”

“And pictures a thousand, yet you don’t see me drawing one for you.”

“Stop groveling,” She grasped him by the forearm. “We’re going bowling!”

The vein was most certainly bulging now. As long as it didn’t pop alongside his patience, things would be alright. He took a steadying breath and met Stephanie’s cowled eyes. He dropped into a gruff Batman-esk voice.

“We are most certainly not.”

Stephanie just grinned.

* * *

 

  
That’s how Damian found himself in a hard plastic chair, too small for his frame, with Stephanie seated across from him, halfway done with a slice of greasy, cheap, bowling lane pizza. If his grandfather had been there- Damian shoved the thought aside. His grandfather could hardly be called such anymore.

He poked his own slice, his nose shriveling up at the grease. Stephanie had order half pepperoni half cheese- a kind gesture, but he’d rather not have a slice at all.

It was like Frankenstein’s monster: a hodgepodge of ingredients stitched together to create something hideous. Benevolent at first, innocent to the world, but his own side-longed face had turned it cruel.

Or maybe it was just bad pizza.

Stephanie didn’t seem to mind, but he supposed that the two to of them had led rather different childhoods. Nevertheless, they had still ended up there together: two estranged children sharing a budget pizza. Well, a budget pizza and grief.

Damian preferred to focus on the pizza.

”Are you going to talk or-” Stephanie tapped her nails on her fountain coke. The carbonated bubbles rose and popped inside the translucent blue cup. ”-are we going to bowl in silence?”

”I actually have to bowl?”

Damian had never bowled before. His father had mentioned it in passing as had Tim- although the latter had been referring to the Wii variant- but he’d never gotten around to it. A pointless game with a pointless motive

Stephanie blinked at him. ”You think I dragged you to a bowling alley, made you rent bowling shoes, and got not just one, but two bowling balls so that we could eat shit pizza?”

At least she agreed the pizza was horrendous.

”I am not in the mood for bowling, ” He poked the Pizza again, his lip curling in.

Stephanie grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him off the chair. ”Shut up, you’re never in the mood for anything, ” She grabbed one of the bowling balls off the spare chair: a blue one, the color of his insignia. ”Now bowl, ” She pushed it into his arms.

Damian waddled towards the lane, swinging the bowling ball with both arms. “I feel like an idiot.” He grumbled as Stephanie laughed behind him. He rolled the ball forward, deflating more so as it drawled into the gutter.

“You look like one too. That’s how five-year-olds and grandmas bowl; hold it with one hand.”

Stephanie approached on his left with her own purple bowling ball. She held it up, showing her fingers grasping it by the three holes. He sulked to the return system, grabbing his off the rack.

“I don’t need your help.”

He made his way back to the lane, mimicking how she’d held it. He swayed his arm trying to match the consistent beat of a pendulum. His arm would enter the forward rotation but before he could let go, he’d find his hand heading backward.

“You don’t have to swing it that many times.”

“Silence. I have to have complete concentration.”

He completed another period feeling a great deal like a sine graph. Beside him, Stephanie snorted. Damian scowled, preparing to let go.

“I could get you one of those child assist ramps.”

The bowling ball landed hard on the lane, drawing the attention of the few who hadn’t taken notice of Gotham’s Masked Freaks Club adorned in their pinching bowling shoes. A toddler babbled and waved at him as the bowling ball strolled its way into the gutter. Again.

He was dishonoring his family legacy. The bipedal, gurgling demon bore witness.

“I don’t like this game,” Damian decided before slouching back to his seat. His legacy: tarnished. Stephanie side-eyed him before grabbing her own ball and taking a step forward.

Damian groveled while ignoring the toddler’s harsh judgment: his blubbering critiques. ”I see why you feel akin to it; you and the game are both insufferable.” Stephanie rolled the ball, knocking down three pins. She winced; he sneered. ”And yet, despite your kinship, you are still miserable at it.”

Stephanie grabbed the ball as it appeared. She lined up for another go. ”Strong words for someone who struck out twice. Tell me, how’s the gutter?”

”Tt.”

She let the ball go, its purple form sliding down the slippery land to knock down two more pins. Five still stood, chuckling at her failed efforts.

”Damn, Batman should have been teaching us bowling all this time. If we face a bowling-themed villain we’re screwed.”

Damian switched spots with Stephanie- him taking the lead at the bridge while she mopped her dignity off the deck. That is to say, Damian sized up the bowling pins as Stephanie ate her pizza dejectedly.

Though no ankle-biter pointed and giggled at her.

Per tradition, he found the ball making its way to the gutter. It seemed at home there; a U-Haul had practically finished moving the bowling ball’s fine china into the gutter from how homely it felt there.

The foul goblin gurgled at his efforts, clearly finding a malignant joy in his trifles. The child may have tried to hide it behind his Sesame Street binky, but it was poorly executed.

Damian missed a second time and increased his glare to the mocking baby who still waggled a hand at him. The child was a hypocrite with poorly developed motor skills. It required one of those ’assist ramps’ Stephanie had spoken of. Nevertheless, It waved and pointed with an air of superiority. He narrowed his eyes.

Stephanie’s hand rested on his shoulder as she moved to pass him. She leaned in to whisper into his ear: ”Stop glaring at the baby like you’re going to throw hands in a Target parking lot at 2 am.”

Damian blinked at her. ”Brown, you imbecile, that child is obviously at least two years old; it is not a baby.”

She pushed away from him. Her arms crossed and her lips twisted into disgust hidden worse than the toddler’s ill intent. ”Okay. Wow. You focused on the wrong part of that sentence,” She ran a hand down her face. ”You can’t just fight a baby.”

Damian ignored her incorrect definition of the child’s age. His eye did twitch slightly.

”I could, but I wouldn’t.” 

A drawn-out sigh magnified her exasperation. ”How have you not been arrested for aggravated assault?” She paused, her hand twisting around to point at herself. ”How haven’t I?”

He clicked his tongue. ”Batman.”

”Batman, ” She conceded. She raised her bowling ball and started walking towards the lane. ”Now that we’ve cleared that- oh my god! Stop glaring at the small child!”

He tossed his hands in the air. ”You underestimate it, I was sword-wielding by that age. I am sure the pint-sized gremlin is more formidable than you assume.”

A drop of drool puddled out of the child’s mouth.

Stephanie muttered something about ’paranoid bats’ before laying a heavy hand on his shoulder. Damian briefly considered twisting her into an armbar but decided to not demonstrate a lack of self-control while under the gaze of the toddler who judged him so.

”Bud, pal, buckaroo, I’m going to give you one more chance to stop before you’ll have to catch my hands in a target parking lot.”

”Why would I have to catch them? Would you be throwing them? They aren’t detachable.”

Stephanie groan was drawn out to the point others around them watched not due to their vigilantism, but instead out of concern. She’d let out enough air to set a hot air balloon afloat; Damian was thankful she hadn’t fainted.

”I’m going to bowl.” She shook her head slowly as though trying to process something. Damian was unsure of what. ”I just- wow.” She scurried away to fail twice. Though none of her attempts found the bowling ball taking up residence in the gutter.

They swapped positions once again. The repetition of it left him feeling like someone had dismembered a teddy bear and surgically implanted the stuffing into his brain.

“Why are we here? This is hardly the best use of our time.”

His ball slid down the lane finally hitting a pin and knocking down three more as collateral. Infinitely better than zero If he considered only flat statistics. It still felt slandering as the elderly man beside him got a strike. The tiny TV displaying the scores proclaimed it.

Simply wise from old age. Nothing more.

A young girl on his other side was also blessed with all pins falling. The TV flashed the word ’strike’ in an obnoxious, wiggly font. He reserved his scowl, classifying it as an outlier statistic.

“We’re here to have fun.” Stephanie said.

He reclaimed the bowling ball sending it back down the lane. He got a singular pin. Idiotic game. He was not having fun. The background chatter, the greasy pizza, the pitifully low score above him. It was as though everything in the alley was designed to distract him.

He paused as he passed Stephanie. She glanced at him through her domino mask before grabbing her bowling ball. She rolled it with little enthusiasm, watching half-heartedly as it hit a measly number of pins. How she stumbled back over to repeat the action, her feet dragging the entire time.

”Guess I’ll never live my dreams of going competitive.” Stephanie joked as she routinely made her way to swap places with Damian. She slumped across from him taking a gulp of coke.

“I see, ” He said, staying in his chair. “To have fun.”

The pounding of the surrounding blocked out any thoughts beyond mundane anger at landing in the gutter, trivial annoyance at those who pointed at them, or mild discomfort at the food quality. It left a white noise in his brain.

“Yeah,-“ Stephanie took another drink of pop “-to have fun,” She flicked a clean napkin towards him. He -being the son of Batman- caught it. Stephanie ignored the development, talking through a bite of pizza: “Now bowl. I’m starting to hear myself think.”

Damian nodded, understanding her for perhaps the first time. Something of the superficialness of the stakes ground any substantial thoughts into a fine grain. From that, the need arose, the need to blind oneself from reflecting too deeply… he understood that.

It was nice: not having to think.

Damian raised the ball; he stared over it towards the center pin. He took one step forward, followed by another. He brought his arm back preparing to let go at the followthrough. The chance never came.

He was hit by a freight train.

A freight train with black hair, blue eyes, and a stylized ’S’ on his hoodie. Damian filed away Jon’s glaring aversion to getting a real uniform for later and instead pushed against his friend’s chest trying to get the half-alien off. It didn’t work and Damian remained pinned to the alley floor -which, disgusting; it was a bowling alley floor- with limited movement.

“Hello,” Damian’s fingers twitched downwards unable to reach his utility belt. “Good to see you.”

“You’ve been avoiding me!” Jon’s tone broke halfway through- the accusation and hurt struggling to combine into a homogenous mixture. Instead, there was a glaring difference: allegation deconstructing into pain.

“Preposterous,” Damian said, lying through his teeth. “I wouldn’t avoid you”

Jon’s face fell more. Damian grumbled, wondering why all his associates resembled saddened golden retrievers. “You laced the windows with kryptonite,”

“Oh, that’s harsh, Tweety Bird,” Stephanie said from behind- ever helpful.

“Unhand me,” He pushed against Jon again with undesired results. He turned his head towards Stephanie. “Will you be of use and get him off of me?”

Stephanie, underwhelmed by Jon’s ambush, scooted her way back the table. To Damian’s disgust, as he’d now experienced true betrayal, Stephanie kicked her feet up onto his chair and reclined in her own.

“I am not getting involved in whatever this is,” She gestured back an forth between the two. “Can you guys take your best friend drama elsewhere? I’m trying to eat crappy pizza.” A crowd had gathered around the trio after the arrival of Jon; one onlooker being the owner. “No offense, dude.”

“Offense taken,” The owner said with crossed arms.

Stephanie waved his response away: shooing faux flies. “Sorry, it’s the truth.” The owner bristled.

“You good for nothing-“ Damian started, glaring at Stephanie.

Jon grasped Damian by the shoulders and pulled him off the ground whilst keeping Damian’s hands away from his utility belt.

“Oh alright,” Jon mumbled. He shifted somewhat awkwardly while holding Damian. “See you, Batgirl.”

“Bye, Supes.”

“I don’t care who you think you are. You two are not leaving this building,” The owner -a somewhat potbellied man with salt and pepper hair- strode up to Jon to stick a finger in his face. “Not on my watch.”

“Erm-“ Jon drawled.

“Not while he’s wearing rented bowling shoes. You don’t get to leave with them unless you buy them,” He held out his hand; waiting for a wad of cash. “So pay up or sit down.”

Damian was more shocked that anyone would think the bowling shoes he wore worth monetary value. If anything, someone should have been paying him to wear them. They were hardly hygienic and -despite falling apart at the seems- were stiff enough to threaten a few blisters if worn too long.

“We’ll be right back-“ Jon tried.

“Pay up or sit down.”

“Right back,” Jon backed up as he spoke. “Promise.”

Damian was hit with a gust of wind as Jon flew away from the wrath of the bowling alley owner. It wasn’t long before they reached solid ground atop a Wayne Enterprise building. Out of all the buildings, Jon had to have chosen the one most likely to call his father out of his cavernous woodwork; like a vengeful termite.

“Well, now that you’ve run and cowered from the middle-aged man, care to put me down?” Damian asked. His arms were still tightly pinned by Jon, unable to reach the Kryptonite that’d free him.

“Only if you say you won’t pull out kryptonite.”

Damian downcast his eyes. “I would not-“

“You totally would. Now promise.”

Damian, aware that this would one day reach his father’s eyes -him: incapacitated by a meta- spoke in a hushed tone. “I promise I won’t pull out Kryptonite,” Why did they have to be on a WE building of all places?

Damian was dropped and he fell into a crouch from which he quickly rebounded. He stiffened his back challenging the concerned gaze of Jon.

Jon hasn’t necessarily been wrong when he’d asserted that Damian was avoiding him. He had been. After what he’d done- well, he didn’t want to deal with the repercussions just yet. After all, why would Jon want to stay friends with blood-stained hands?

  
“How did you find me?” Damian asked after a moment.

“You and Steph are trending on Twitter,” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Under: #TheyCanSaveGothamBut. It’s just clips of you guys bowling… it’s sorta sad really.” He glanced at Damian. “Like really sad, actually-“

“Jonathan, please remain focused. The toddler’s attack on Twitter can be dealt with later. More importantly-“

“Toddler?”

“-why did you feel the need to track me down?” Damian asked. The Wayne Enterprise’s logo glowed above him. Its luminescence, made his gut curl in. His father would witness him having a heart to heart. That was undesirable.

“Seriously? I’m worried about you!” Jon shook his head. “After everything that happened… I just- are you okay?”

“I am fine,” Damian crossed his arms tightly across his chest. “You concern is ill-placed; I would suggest speaking with Brown instead. I feel after everything with… everything with Drake- all that’s happened with him, it’s affecting her more so than she lets on.”

Might as well drop that for his father to hear. Perhaps then he could be of some use in the empathetic theater for once and provide Stephanie with compassion of some sort. Push aside his emotional constipation for at least a little bit.

Unlikely, but who knows? Maybe.

“I’ll talk to Steph,” Jon said. “but right now, I’m talking to you. So tell me, are you okay?”

“Life is sufficient besides everyone assuming I was involved with the fortunate death of the Joker.”

Jon went to sit at the edge of the building, kicking feet in the open air. “I’m not here to talk about what you did or didn’t do that night. Just please talk to me.” He pulled his knees in hugging them. “Kon’s devastated. He’s lost his best friend.” Jon stared into nothingness, his eyes glossing over while watching the floating blimps and smoke. “I don’t want to lose you in all this too.”

A silence took a seat between them. It was long, but not drawn out. Instead, it was nice, like a cup of tea in the morning with a familiar butler, where neither had to talk. Jon broke from his trance to meet Damian’s masked eyes.

“So please, tell if you’re okay.”

Damian looked over his shoulder at the sign that illuminated the night. He looked outwards to the cityscape catching familiar glows throughout the city. Not all of them were Wayne Enterprise signs -a fair few were- but for the most part, they were varied. Damian had never seen stars while in Gotham, but in a way -if he squinted- he could imagine that the speckling of manmade light intertwined in Gotham were stars.

He supposed that made Gotham outer space: mystifying, unknown, and calling out to him. All the while, it was also overwhelming and without oxygen. Simply being their made him suffocate.

He hated Gotham.

He sat beside Jon, leaning close to his ear and cupping his hand to block any auditory or visual data of which his father could depict what he said. He spoke for a while to Jon, the other man unmoving as he spoke.

For the first time since Alfred had called him, Damian spoke freely. While it never entered what had happened _that_ night, he talked of other things he’d been avoiding saying. Things he didn’t want Stephanie or his Father or even Alfred to know.

It was liberating: telling the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m doing this more as a slow build so it will take a bit for some characters to show up. Also, i’m pretty sure Jon can’t fly right now in the current continuity, but I don’t know if it’s because he’s young or just doesn’t have the ability


	3. A Suit Fiasco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian gets some visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it!

“I’ve been following up on the Scarecrow lead, but it is yet to bear anything substantial. Some fear gas has shown up in Central City implying the Rogues’ involvement, but it is flimsy at best.”

Damian pulled his hands back, a bow tie dancing between his fingers and away from Alfred’s swatting paws.

“Tt, if you are to be going today, you must meet the dress code.” 

Damian wore a stiff black suit he’d bought with Pennyworth and was currently trying to dress Alfred (the cat) appropriately as well.

With his mother and grandfather, funerals weren’t commonplace. More so, it was a lost face in a faceless crowd: expendable, inconsequential. No need for memorial.

A constant gust of wind blew through the apartment. He found himself unable to close it as of late.

Tim used to be the only one who used it. Nowadays, he had a wider selection stopping in. He practically ran a truck stop for the superhero community- only, if they tried to get a coffee, he’d slap them.

Alfred screeched as Damian tried to sneak the bow tie on him.

Damian hadn’t yet attended a funeral. In solace, he relented Tim’s being the first seemed appropriate. Tim wasn’t inconsequential or expendable; this event only depicted such and their shared regret for having not realized sooner.

Alfred yowled again and Damian shooshed him. “Anyways, it may be a revenge play for Drake’s supposed _involvement_ with Boomerang’s death.”

A creak in the window sill. Too loud to be Stephanie, Colin, or any others. Jon wouldn’t have bothered landing in the window at all. The sound was too familiar to have been a stranger’s.

“Do you always talk cases to your cat?” His father asked.

Damian stopped himself from stiffening and continued trying to get the bow tie on Alfred. The cat slashed his hand and Damian held back a grunt. His father’s form blocked the moonlight from the window, casting the same shadow he used to instill fear in scum.

Damian refused to be scum.

“I find speaking aloud helps on occasion.”

“You never did that when you were my Robin.” His gruff voice softened.

A joke, an olive branch. Damian clicked his tongue- as if. It was a ploy, a jab, a stab from the window, _an accusation_.

“Yes, well I find Alfred gives better advice.”

Alfred patted a paw towards his hand with retracted claws. He meowed as though to prove Damian’s point; he smiled at the cat. Stephanie had once described Jon as a ‘true bro’ after the bowling alley incident. He supposed Alfred, too, was a ‘true bro’.

He scratched behind Alfred’s ear. 

“Hn.”

“Do you plan to stay in my window or have not enough people deduced my identity?”

_Clunk, clunk._

One boot after the other. The thunking continued as his father made his way towards him. He set down the bow tie, spinning to face him. He straightened his back; after his final growth spurt, he’d gained an inch on his father. However, Batman remained taller.

Thanks to Stephanie, he learned this was because Batman wore platform boots while Bruce Wayne did not. Stephanie had said platform shoes were popular on runways and a statement of the 80s. He hadn’t yet deduced why an 80s influence was important to wear the cowl, but she insisted it was of high vitality.

He found himself peaking at his father’s boots.

“You never know if you’ve been bugged.” His father peered around the apartment as he always did; drinking in half-finished sketches, empty glasses, and spilled cat food.

Damian usually kept his apartment cleaner, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. It seemed too mundane, too normal, too standard. Nothing in his life was fulfilling the standard quo and -though he knew it irrational- he felt cleaning would be symbolic of life returning to normal.

He wasn’t ready to dismiss what had happened. Wasn’t ready for normality.

“The only bugs I’ve found have been yours.”

He had a jar of them beside his kitchen sink. Whenever he found himself irritated with his father, he’d crush one. Considering how often he did, the jar, by all means, should have been empty. Instead, he had a surplus.

His father was a paranoid man.

A silence passed between them. He couldn't recall many comfortable walls of silence they’d shared. A few had occurred mid-way through his career as Robin, but Pennyworth had always been there to mediate. Alfred, although being named after the man, had the opposite effect.

Alfred was an instigator.

His father pulled his cape back, as the cat gnawed on it. He squatted down, narrowing his eyes at him. Alfred took a slash at him, that he easily avoided. He was Batman, after all, he wouldn't let himself be scratched by a cat of all things.

Damian tucked his mauled hands into his pockets.

”You’re… dressing him up?”

”The media didn’t lie, christening you the World’s Greatest Detective. Though I  prefer the chimp.”

His father stood up. his lips almost twitched up. _Almost_. “You’ve been spending too much time with Alfred.” His gaze returned to the cat who starred back with his own bat-glare. “The human Alfred.”

“I’ll cancel our brunch.” He wouldn’t.

Neither moved and silence returned. Damian scowled, balling his fists in his pockets.

“Well, as you’re a detective, you can see I’m busy. Leave.”

Pennyworth would have wanted him to use his manners. To say ‘leave please’. For anyone else, he’d have complied, but he had to disappoint the old man temporarily. His judgment burned in Damian’s brain at the dropped ‘please’.

Oh well.

“You’re window was open.”

“Hardly an invitation.”

The two drifted into another lapse of silence. It was a wonder his father managed to charm so many women as Brucie when being stuck in a room with his son and Co. left him stalled. He’d have to have words with Alfred about stealing people’s tongues; what an instigator.

Damian’s eyes drifted to the clock on his wall and redirected to Alfred who wasn’t properly dressed yet. There wasn’t time for their standoff to see who reigned as the most emotionally constipated Wayne.

“I’d make you a cup of tea, but you might feel welcomed.” Damian crossed his arms, hands hidden in the nooks of his elbows.

“Hn.”

The man wasn’t even trying. He lived with Pennyworth on the daily and couldn’t even strike up a response to Damian’s belittling. His father shifted, his shadow dancing across the wall. Damian wasn’t one to carry conversations, yet this one nearly broke his back.

“You’ve deposited your bugs. No reason to stay.”

His quick glance indicated four bugs, two of them on Alfred, one outside the window, the other under the table. Likely three more he hadn’t spotted yet, one on his person. He’d almost emptied a sixteenth of his jar, how thoughtful of his father to help him fill it back up.

“I came here to… talk with you.”

“Lovely job you’re doing at it.”

Damian had spent enough time with his father to notice the awkward air he emitted. For a man some thought a cryptid or Omni-potent, his mystery became little more than a flair for the dramatic when one knew him.

Not to say his father couldn’t be terrifying. Damian had many times seen the fear his father controlled. At the moment, Damian saw little more than a father struggling to communicate with his son.

“After the funeral,” His father took a long pause, nearly flinching, but he was the Batman; he wouldn’t show such weakness. Not to Damian. “Stay out of Gotham until Batgirl and I close this case.”

_This case._

His suit felt stiffer than usual. The tie was like a noose that wasn’t quick to tighten. It was slow and methodical, A pair of hands wrapping round with such care that he hadn’t noticed the pressure till he couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t let himself loosen it. Perhaps if it’d been his Father…

Never with Batman though.

“That will be difficult as she and I also have mini-golf arrangements next week.”

Bowling was off the table as, beyond the cyber bullying, he’d been banned for life due to some pinching shoes resting in his closet. He should have returned them, but it was too late to surrender. The man had declared war on his honor and drawn in all the other bowling alleys in Gotham.

It would not stand.

He’d suggested vengeance, She’d suggested mini-golf.

“Damian,” He dropped into _that_ voice. “You aren’t on this case.”

It wasn’t a case. It was a travesty.

“But my leads-“

“Will be handled. You’re benched for this one.”

Alfred yowled with contempt and Damian couldn’t help but sympathize. He held the table’s edge, fingers digging into the wood, his knuckles turning white. The scratches were on full display; his father narrowed his eyes.

An adolescent anger, that he usually kept at bay was leaking through. It was the anger that had made him cut both Stephanie and Tim’s lines on separate, yet numerous, occasions. The anger that had made him push away his replacements: his father’s faux children. It bubbled deep and persistent, but he’d gotten better at controlling it.

1, 2, 3, 4: a breath. 1, 2, 3,4: a brea-

“You killed the Joker, Damian.”

“I did not!” He slammed his hands against the table, lying through his teeth. Alfred scampered away at the bang, though Damian’s gaze didn’t shift to the cat- didn’t shift from his father. He repeated again, in a smaller voice: “I didn’t.”

Some may have called it denial.

1,2,3,4: a breath.

He’s not sure what he would have called it.

He ran a hand through his hair, meeting his father: glare to glare. “I have to finish with Alfred. You and you’re 80s self can leave. I don’t care how snatched your uniform is.”

Snatched, another word from Stephanie.

“What the?”

“Leave.”

His father made his way to the door, dragging his feet as he left. He paused in the window almost... _regretful._

But Batman couldn't be regretful.

Damian was debating just leaving a bat signal on outside his apartment. Enough people must have known his identity from how many vigilantes brooded outside his window.

“Damian-“

“Leave. Father, you are not a true bro.” Damian didn’t turn to see him leave, instead, he squatted down to coerce Alfred back.

The stare was tangible.

“Stay out of Gotham.” With a swoosh of a cape, he was gone. Damian slumped, a limp hand still beckoning for Alfred.

It wasn’t a case.

_It wasn’t_

* * *

 

By a mixture of grit and magic, he’d gotten Alfred ready for the funeral and into the passenger seat beside him. In a less than thrilling, but more expected turn of events, Alfred proceeded to shred the suit to pieces.

_How coarse._

Damian was driving down the road, eyes continuously shifting to his cat. It’d gotten to the point he was seriously considering calling up Zatanna because Alfred had channeled some anarchical demon and was turning the already shredded fabric into confetti.

Based on the things he’d read about funeral edict, confetti wouldn’t be deemed appropriate.

_Shameful._

He shook his head and Alfred tilted his own. The cat let out a screech of pure anguish- he was just hungry. Still, Damian jumped in his seat and nearly missed the ‘Welcome to Gotham’ sign. But -despite his cat’s yowls- he caught sight of it and his foot pressed the breaks.

He hadn’t meant to do that.

He steered the slowing vehicle towards the side of the road. The cars behind him howled their displeasure. The one directly behind him, a beat-up pickup truck, flipped him the bird.

More specifically, Conner Kent flipped him the bird. Realization dawned on both their faces and, as he drove out of view, Damian dissociated. Seeing the wide blue eyes had been surreal.

He dropped his head against the steering wheel, unable to make his foot press the gas. With shaking fingers, he undid his tie, tossing it to the side where Alfred acted as a paper shredder. He blinked from the mutilation to the Gotham skyline.

He couldn’t do this.

And he didn’t. As the media, which broke into the ceremony by hiding in the bushes, noted in their next day headline: _Eldest Wayne Heir Absent from Tim Drake-Wayne’s Funeral_. 

He’d read it on the couch, glancing out the window.

The window was always open.

* * *

  
Four months later his window was still open.

It was eclipsed by purple- more purple than the batgirl suit had ever had.“I’m done with him.” Stephanie huffed making her way to flip onto the couch. “I’m done with Bruce.”

Damian continued his still life of the fresh fruits Alfred had made him buy. “Hm?”

It wasn’t unusual for her to pop by. They exchanged information on their individual investigations into what had happened _that night_. She provided the Gotham insight and he looked into out of town leads. There had been a shocking number of them, all the way from the Central City Rogues to Lex Luthor.

What had Tim gotten himself into?

“I’m done,” She repeated, pulling off her spoiler mask. “Done with Batgirl. Done with Batman. Done with _Bruce_.”

He did some stippling across the orange, carefully balancing the dark and light values. He hummed in acknowledgment. “I gathered as much.” He switched from a 2B pencil to a 4B striving to add more shadows. “I’d say come to Blüdhaven, but it’s gotten cramped as of recent.”

More so that Jon had come to town. He came by rather often so Damian could help his job search.

“I can’t believe he’d-“ She cut off, sitting abruptly up. “Oh god, he didn’t tell you did he? Who am I kidding, of course, he didn’t. He’s Bruce.” She stood up, pacing around the coffee table. “I cannot believe him. He totally manipulated me into telling you, the bastard, _the coward_. I am done with him.”

“What’d my father do?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t believe him.” She ran a hand through her hair. “He’s going to get another kid killed,” Damian stalled, heart rate raising. “He’s-“

“He’s got a new Robin.” Damian realized.

The pencil snapped in his hand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason’s going to show up next chapter!!  
> ~things will get more lighthearted when Damian starts to interact with him


	4. Got Milk?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian meets an old friend, a new friend, and screws things up big time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it!

Somewhere between Gotham and Blüdhaven –and about a mile out from nowhere– was a somewhat prim bakery. Its open door wafted promises of donuts and croissants to passersby, snaring them with an aromatic net.

Damian wished someone would shut the door. The heathens dressed in trench coats and scarves were better suited for the alleyways. One did not wear a trench coat unless they were up to something. Years of deductive reason with Batman had taught him such.

A woman strolled in, mousey hair tied back and thinning, her hands tucked deep in his trench coat. Damian narrowed his eyes. She rubbed her neck awkwardly.

He waited at the window seat, dressed in a corduroy jacket with a fold-over bit covered in fuzz. He had removed his mittens, but kept his hat -bobble and all- pulled over his ears and partially obscuring his eyebrows. His table was a two-seater, but he glowered at customers all by himself.

Waiting.

The woman left quickly, a box of muffins in hand, as an older man strolled in. His face obscured by a hat, hood, and scarf. Damian scowled at the trench coat dangling just past his knees. Only blushed cheeks and a luminescent red nose poked out from his winter wear.

Damian leaned back into his chair; it creaked as he did so. He watched the empty seat, clicking his tongue. Tardiness was improper.

At a tingling down his neck, he turned to see the old man staring at him.

Waiting.

Damian rolled his eyes. Staring wasn’t unusual to him. Lots of people stared: women, men, paparazzi, babies. Damian glared at the man, willing him to stop. He won these battles of wills most of the time, though babies were a notable outlier, but the man stood strong. He’d have to consider this for future reference. His two weaknesses: babies and elderly people. That was some disruptive selection if he’d ever seen it.

“Master Damian, that face will stick if you keep making it,” The man said. Damian stopped glaring– his jaw froze up. “Though I suppose you’d like that considering you’re letting me sit here with freezing bones. I’ll say, we must meet up more often if your manners have sullied so.”

With a screech of metal on tile, Damian went to help Alfred into his opposite chair. Alfred took his trenchcoat off, slipping it off and onto the table behind him. So maybe not everyone with a trenchcoat was evil. “Sorry, Pennyworth,” He mumbled, sitting back down.

  
“It alright. I had just assumed that after driving myself all the way out here, you would be more receptive to me. It has been a while, my boy,” Alfred perused the chalk menu behind Damian’s head. “Though that’s more the fault of Master Bruce than yourself– not that you nor Miss Stephanie have been of any help.”

Damian tapped his fingers on the table. One after the other, after the other. Rhythmic and comforting.

“I don’t think Brown is alrught,” Damian said.

The last time they’d talked she’d pivoted from uncharacteristically loud to atypically quiet. He –much to personal digression. He was the disgraced heir to two legacies – initiated a meeting with Stephanie Brown the prior week. He later gave himself a psychosis self-check; among several others. Turns out, her tears were just pushy and (he shuddered to think of it) pathetic. Batgirl wasn’t pathetic; it didn’t make sense.

Tears had once been a sign of victory: that he’d brought his opponent to their knees. Somewhere along the line, he found he didn’t like making certain people cry– even if his actions and words were justifiable.

Bothersome, inconvenient, and unwanted. Might as well humor them.

Alfred wasn’t smiling. “She hasn’t been receptive to recent developments. Master Bruce is too stubborn to reach out to her.” He rose, shoulders limp. “I’ll get us an order of donuts,” Damian started to speak; Alfred raised a hand and nodded. “Extra sprinkles.”

How did his father function when Alfred was out?

In the line, Alfred made polite conversation. Damian tilted his head, seeing him exercise his manners as though bench pressing nothing. Somehow both calculated and emotional; the man was a master of the art.

Damian took the time while waiting to straighten his gloves, remove his hat, and take a napkin from the dispenser to rest across his legs. In fancy restaurants, his father had always told him to do as such. Something about catching crumbs or stains– he hadn’t really been listening. That had been during his early days as Robin, back when he wasn’t as decidedly aligned as he was now.

Though Batman thought he had started to slip again. Hypocritical since Bruce Wayne had essentially pushed him.

He rubbed his under eyes. He was so tired. He’d been tired for so long.

Alfred set down a donut across him. It wasn't particularly special: blue frosting peeking out from purple and white sprinkles. Damian poked it. He didn’t like donuts, but the old man had always been proud of his own so Damian had always relented and eaten them. Damian was too deep in the lie.

“I got this, cat-shaped, one for you. I believe it ‘s supposed to be a cat– without the ears, or whiskers –” Alfred counted on his fingers, drawling out qualities of a cat “– or a tail.”

“A normal donut.”

“Your father trained you sharp.”

Damian smiled, the lie was worth it. He glanced up to catch Alfred doing the same. “How have you been, Pennyworth?” Damian knit his hands together, stopping their constant tapping. His foot started to pat.

Alfred stopped smiling.

“Things have been difficult after Master Timothy passed. Bruce has been leaning on impulsive lately– especially with his nightlife.”

And taking on a new child so soon. Perhaps Tim hadn’t been meant to replace Damian, but what about this new child– this new _Robin_. A world without a Batgirl or a Robin was too unstable apparently. With the universe tottering back into equilibrium it was only a question of when a new Batgirl donned the mask.

He chewed his donut and swallowed his nerves away. “Pennyworth, Alfred the Cat is doing well, but I was wondering about Titus. Is he well?”

Why couldn't he ask? They were just words.

”Ah, Titus. He’s been well, ” Alfred patted Damian’s hand. ”Yet even an old man lacks wisdom in thinking he can talk without pretenses. Ask about the boy, I suspect you know about him.”

The silence hurt more than any punch. Well, any punch besides that good one Kiteman had gotten to his ribs back when he was Robin. Jesus, that had hurt. Now though, the silence rang out like a hammer on a bell. His foot patting picked up. Why was his throat so dry? He always stayed perfectly hydrated.

He needed something to drink.

““Brown did tell me of a child living there. From what I understand, it’s what made her give up her nightlife, but surely, after Drake’s passing, he would not have— especially so soon…”

“I’m afraid his heart is too big. It is nice to have the lad around.”

The tiny bakery shrunk. His breath hitched. His mouth was too dry. His heartbeat confined in a shrinking chest cavity. He tried to focus on the lamp post across the street to keep himself seated. Dissociation was a weakness, everyone had taught him so: his father, mother, and grandfather. It made you lose where you were. That was deadly in a fight.

The light flickered. Damian’s breathing snagged.

“Titus likes Master Jason. It’s been lonely since... well, it’s been hard.” Alfred dabbed his eyes with a napkin. “Excuse me a moment.”

Stephanie would have known what to say. Jon would have known what to say. Emotional stability hadn't been a lesson he was taught often. Well besides from the man in front of him. Damian calmed himself and jumped off the edge into the pit of truths he didn't want to know.

“His name’s Jason? What is he like?”

“Such a sweet boy.” Alfred sniffled. “Brilliant as well.”

“Why don’t you tell me about him?”

Alfred wiped his eyes, dropping the napkin on the table. Damian grabbed Alfred’s hand, patting it in the same way the man would for him. He remembered waking up after his first time after getting gassed by the Scarecrow. His father had been out hunting, but Alfred had held Damian’s hand till the shaking stopped, asking curt questions through tremoring words. And finally, a pat on his hand.

Alfred smiled. “Alright.”

* * *

 

That night, Damian turned a corner, barreling towards a starting car. The headlights alight blinding him. He closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the engine getting closer. He jumped, landing on the hood of the car rather than being snagged under the wheels. He slammed palms against the glass, making the driver swerve.

A knife flipped from his pocket; its blade dug into the top of the car, sliding with a screech till it gained purchase. He held it, heaving himself topwize and feet denting the top. He leaned over the edge, kicking the driver's side window. He wore steel toe boots; it still hurt. He needed to start bringing a hammer to break glass.

The car left the ally, still in an unbusy suburban street, but closing in on the nearest highway. The window cracked. The driver drove into a set of garbage bins. Damian’s legs kicked out into the open air. He hung like a kite: the knife was his string holding him. A piece of rubbish, a shoe, hit him in the face. Damian’s head lurched back and he grumbled.

The man made a wild left and Damian braced himself: knees bent and feet against the side of the car. He held on with one hand and punched the glass with the other. His metal knuckles taking the brunt of the force. Still, a hammer would be nice.

Using the momentum, he pulled himself into the car, landing on the driver's lap and swiftly headbutting him. The man grunted  and car sped up more. Damian pushed him towards the passenger side– something that took considerable effort considering they were in the same seat.

The man grabbed for the door handle. Damian grabbed the scruff of the man’s shirt, pulling him back as he clicked on the child locks. His father had used them against him a great deal when he was younger. Well, look at him now.

The man punched at him. Damian grabbed his hand and steered the wheel with the other.

“I will crash this car,” Damian grunted.

A phone jangled in the cupholder. The robotic voice spoke: “Turn left in two miles onto 23rd Street.” A cerulean blue streak helpfully alighted the line on the way there. The man grabbed for it, but Damian slammed him backward.

Damian grabbed the phone, catching the address and directions.

“Seriously? Google maps?”

“I’m not great with directions.”

Damian scowled. The driver wore a scarecrow mask. He had an empty holster from where Damian had disarmed him before he’d gotten into the car. The estimated drive was twenty-three minutes. He pressed down on the pedal. He could get there in twelve.

“What does Scarecrow want in Blüdhaven?” Damian saw something purple jump the gap of the building. He looked upwards, but it was gone.

The man crossed his arms. “He doesn’t want nothing.”

Damian ignored the double negative. “That rat does not leave his cesspool without reason,” Damian grip on the wheel tightened. “You don’t have to be awake for this trip. Why not chat with me?”

Upon being met with silence, Damian banged the driver’s head against the dashboard. His informant would wake up later if this was a bust.

The drive was quiet for the most part. He swore there was a thump against the top of the car, but when he stuck his head out the window, he saw nothing atop. He turned on the radio, letting the formulaic pop music distract him from his thoughts.

He started to jam out to “Call Me Maybe” just a smidge. He truly was a disgrace, but he was a tree in a forest and no one he knew was around.

He turned up the volume.

The rest of the drive was about the same. Him nodding along to pop songs Stephanie and Tim used to make him listen to. It wasn’t the classics, but it was something. When saltwater and pollution finally wafted through the broken window, he turned the music off.

It was always by the docks it seemed. By the docks and in a condemned factory. Hideouts were stereotypical these days.

When he saw two seagulls fighting over a bagel, he chose to pull over. Well, that and google maps announcing: “The destination is on your left in 500 feet." He checked the restraints on possible informant number one and made to leave the car.

As he left, a masked woman draped in purple jumped down as well from atop the car. He was getting rusty if she’d been able to hide atop there— or she was just good. The purple lady handed him back his knife that had been on the hood and shot him some finger guns. He got the impression a sarcastic wink was thrown in under her black mask.

Damian squawked indignantly; reminiscent to the seagulls fighting over the bagel.

She exaggerated a stretch and walked towards the building. Damian caught her hand pulling her back.

“Nope. I am not having this ruined by some child in dress up. You don’t comprehend the vitality of this.” It had taken him too long to find out about this meeting. Too long to get a lead. Too long of stirring with an unquenched need to fix what had happened: to let Tim rest.

She slapped him. Hard.

Damian grunted, ignoring her surprisingly good efforts to break his grip. She was slippery, but new vigilantes tended to be wild cards. This was not a wild card mission. He handcuffed her to the car.

She slapped him again. Harder.

“I will return in five. If not, my condolences,” He snorted to himself. As though he wouldn’t make it out. This would be a breeze.

The building looked as one might suspect a condemned one to be. Broken glass, broken walls, and a significant lack of copper wiring. As he sculled closer, glass crunched under his boots. The sound was practically comforting these days: a call back to him and his father cleaning up a robbery after crashing through the skylight.

A skylight Bruce Wayne would, on occasion, pay for anonymously.

The night breeze was cold and familial. The salty scent soothing. The midst of a caper pacified his thoughts in a way a trip to a bowling alley or a jam session to some bobs could never. His nightlife was something else— something amazing.

But it was nothing to bring another Robin into.

Damian crawled through, more glass munching underfoot on the other side. He kept to the shadows, further excluding himself from being diurnal; he was nocturnal all the way. The shadows hugged him, a familiar embrace in the unfamiliar —yet characteristically similar— factory. They had used to produce shoes here.

He needed a new pair of boots. His foot still hurt from kicking in the glass.

Following the winding halls, he emptied into an expansive room with chutes where produced shoes used to be sent down. It lacked the evidence of extensive hardware, though it could have just been picked clean by scrappers: rats to crumbs.

He paused by the wall, listening for something. He should have found a sign of animal life at least. The building was a fine shelter for the second half of flora and fauna. But no birds nested above, not rats hid in the wall, and no snakes slithered about. It wasn’t necessarily not hearing them or seeing them, it was that there was no sign of them.

No scat, footprints, or shed skin.

Leave a box on the side of the road and something will live in it. But here, something or someone was making an effort to keep it moderately clean. Of course it, much like most of Blüdhaven, was a dump. Just a dump that someone had –how would Alfred put it?– spruced up.

But then why not sweep up the glass?

  
Damian grabbed a sword from his back, the blade glinting from the minimal light given from a fire escape window up above. Father was right in thinking he was an imbecile. Google maps and its treacherous objectiveness. Blind-sighted! He’d been blind-sighted!

No wonder every legacy he’d ever been part of decidedly disowned him.

He went blind.

Like a lighthouse that finally fixed its lamp, he was drowned in light. Same as in the ally, his vision was compromised. He waited without a car engine to listen for. Only footsteps. So many footsteps.

Someone punched him. It hit hard; more malice than the purple lady had used when slapping. He tensed his grip on his hilt. A footstep got to close; he kicked out their knees. The lights cut out, dropping him back in darkness. His eyes struggled to readjust, he blinked away semi-permanent lens flares. As his vision returned, the lights cut back on.

It turned into a strobe light effect, keeping him blind. He closed his eyes. Another punch, this time to his spleen. There were more footsteps. All around him: blunt objects, sharp object. He was going to have to get his suit re-tailored; it was getting far too tattered.

The ground around him became littered with people. All alive, just thoroughly… _run down_.

And although he took many of them out– the son of the Bat had a reputation to uphold after all– they piled on and on until he fell to his knees. Humiliated.

This caper had been for Tim and yet he fell.

What a shame.

* * *

 

Damian woke up an undisclosed amount of time later. His sporadic mixes of occupational all-nighters –both in the mask and for work– had his internal clock as tattered as his uniform. How Weak and idiotic of him.

When had he become such a failure?

At least he could see. No flashing lights to deter his vision. He brought his hands up, they jerked back down. The chair was metal and so were the binds. Both seamless and lock-less. Had they welded him in?

Bodies still lay unconscious around him. Every so often, one would get up, look at Damian and scowl as they left the room. A couple took some swings at him. Most of them hit, his movement was rather restrained after all, but a few didn’t hit. Their aim was deplorable.

One woman, with red hair peeking out from her scarecrow mask, got up and rubbed her temple. A tallish man woke next and she bent down to help him out. Though he was disguised in the garb of a Two-Face goon.

A collaboration.

There seemed to be a bit of all of them on the ground. Riddler's men, the Penguin's, etcetera. A mixing pot of Gotham’s finest charlatans. The man and woman went towards him, each taking a swing and each hitting.

He spat towards them as they left.

As they left his sight, the man himself came into the room: Johnathan Crane. Damian worked up some more saliva to spit. Crane watched him, expression hidden behind his ridiculous mask. Damian spit. He hoped Crane was affronted with the display.

He mostly ignored Damian.

“The first bird. It’s been a while hasn’t it?” Crane stalked around Damian, his back hunched. Damian had always hated Scarecrow’s hands: his fingers long and skeletal. All of them barely covered by paper skin. They were the hands of the corpse, but Crane was well and alive.

He rested his hands on Damian’s shoulder.

“Batman’s been alone in Gotham, hasn’t he? No you, no Batgirl, no Robin. Whatever happened to that second one? The Batgirl?” The fingers dug down. “We all know what happened to the boy blunder– and Joker. _What you did_.” Crane released him, slithering to face him. “That’s not my problem. I need to find her.”

“She has decided to retire.”

Behind them, three more men and two women woke up and promptly left.

Crane’s eyes slid to watch them leave before drifting back to him. He leaned towards Damian, their noses nearly touching. “But you know who she is, don’t you?”

Their heads cracking together broke the sympathy of groaning goons and creeping words.

Crane backed up, a hand to his head. “You weren’t supposed to be my responsibility. Though I suppose two out of three is good regardless.” Crane grabbed for something in his waistband. “I’d draw this out, but the Bat has a tendency to show up when it's not done quickly. Ivy thinks he’s got you birds chipped.”

A metallic glint. He held a gun rather than a scythe; no gas in sight. The safety clicked off, a barrel between Damian's eyes.

And Damian couldn’t move.

He wondered if this is how Tim felt, looking death in the eye. If he too had still hoped that things would work out.

Maybe he’d get to ask him.

His father was going to be upset, perhaps he’d find another child to help with the sadness. That would cheer Alfred up at least. It had worked thus far. Twice even if he counted the adoption of Tim. Stephanie wouldn’t be happy though. She hadn’t found joy in Tim being replaced. What would his death do to her?

The finger started to press the trigger.

_Oh well._

A splatter of purple fell from the ceiling landing atop Crane. The purple lady gave him a two-finger salute before pulling out a tiny saw. She’d slipped his restraints. The restraints made by Batman.

Perhaps he had underestimated her. He’d been wrong on occasion. Believing his grandfather was a good man for example. Pushing Tim away.

Still didn’t mean he trusted her with a spinning blade so close to his hands.

“Be careful you cretin.”

She flicked his nose.

The whirling roused some hired muscle. After seeing Crane knocked unconscious and a vigilante holding an active saw, they were quick to leave. They were insects fleeing a burning building– a few even took the fire exit. He had yet to determine if the purple lady constituted fire status yet.

His right wrist came free. He reached for his belt, intending to help with his restraints. He found nothing. Purple lady tilted her head and pulled back her cloak to show his belt clipped above her own. She slid it off, dropping it unceremoniously on his lap as though it wasn’t the embodiment of preparedness.

She started to work on his right ankle as he pulled out his own saw and worked on his left hand. Her cut on his right hand had been rather good. Perhaps this woman had transferred to Blϋdhaven from a different country. He didn’t know much about the Canadian heroes, though he had met Red Star a few years back.

Maybe she was Canadian.

Near simultaneously, the two restraints broke off. He waited for her to finish his last one. His chair had terrible back support. He’d rather lay on a bed of blades than stay sitting any longer. His foot still hurt. If his toe had broken, he was going to complain about the shattering discrepancy to someone.

He just hadn’t decided who yet.

The lady offered her his hand after getting the last one off. He brushed it away, stretching his back as he got to his feet. The lady crossed her arms, tapping her foot: watching him. Damian traveled back to the bakery. He turned, pulling a face to his hand.

“Thank you.”

Captured and forgetful of his manners. Gotham really was better without him in it.

The lady patted his shoulder, kicked Crane in the ribs, and left.

Damian re-clasped his belt, wishing she’d have kept company for a bit longer. Her presence was strangely comforting.

* * *

 

Several days later, he sat on a park bench and people watched.

He’d never fancied himself a musician, but the beat of his foot told otherwise: consistent enough to keep the rest of his fidgeting in time. Though it wasn’t fidgeting, of course. It was dexterity exercises that doubled to keep his find sharp. A periodic fingertap to ground himself.

Not that it was doing that either.

No, he sat on a park bench, fingers and toes dancing without sound; his mind vehement. His hood curtained his face while an escaped hair would flutter in and out of view. He brushed it backward, some raindrops helping plaster it down. It was a hideous day in Gotham —not that every day wasn’t horrid— with salt and pepper clouds above, disguised in the low hanging fog. Even without the dampness, something always clung to him in this dump: grime, exhaust, often a sinking gut.

He bore the rain and carcinogens for a reason. Today was special: he was ghost hunting. Ghost watching? The terminology was a work in progress. He’d apathetically taken up journaling to ‘work through his feelings’ by suggestion of Maya. Although the prefix had swapped poles as of recent. He hadn't yet decided what to call it when he recounted it later.

Stephanie had suggested ‘ghostbusting’ but that seemed rather aggressive.

Nevertheless, Damian had met the undead before. they were positivity repugnant no matter their alignment; both Solomon Grundy and Deadman made him gag— though he hadn’t voiced this to them. Several people had preached to him something along the lines of: ‘if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. He wanted to voice his opinions about that, but alas: a Catch 22.

It was a deplorable saying.

Despite his green-tinted childhood, he didn't particularly like the undead. In his experience, people don’t come back right. They never did.  
  
But this ghost wasn’t like others. This ghost walked with boisterous confidence, a smug simper, and rolling shoulders. He made a point to stomp in every puddle, his hands in his pockets. Jason looked so much like Tim, but Jason never stopped smoldering. Damian hadn’t yet determined what Jason scowled at.

Rain? Rats? The blatant pollution that even Batman couldn’t punch?

A shadow crossed the building above. Maybe none of the above. Damian left when Batman pulled Jason aside.

He was there to meet the boy. He wasn’t there to meet Robin.

* * *

  
Damian was on his scrappy couch, finishing up his latest journal. There was something cathartic about writing about how horrible things were. If he tried, he could sometimes pretend it was all fiction. Whenever he reread his journals he thought of them as some storybook he’d found.

Usually, he didn’t read them though. He would just sweep up his thoughts and lock them neatly away.

  
He was dotting the last sentence with a finalizing period when there was a rustle at the window. Damian set his book on the coffee table and reached for his mug of tea. A couple failed sketches he’d been using as a coaster stuck to the bottom. He swatted them off.

“We’re both aware I have a front door, Brown. Try it. if it's locked, consider it fate.” Though Damian couldn’t lock Stephanie out even if he wanted, not since he’d accidentally slipped a spare key into her bag. He hoped she did come inside, he hadn’t yet discussed the nuances of his run-in with Crane. The generalization yes, but no intricacies.

No snide came about him leaving his window open in a rainstorm, just a shrinking voice trying to sound larger than it was. “She the blonde broad Bruce used to hang with?”

Damian nearly spilled his tea. He dropped it on the table, scowling at Jason who puffed his chest out. Damian rose, helping the boy through the window so he didn’t slip and die. That’d be both unfortunate and difficult to explain. “She prefers Stephanie,” He crossed his arms. “I’d suggest you say as such.”

Jason looked like a kitten left in the rain.

“I- uh, sorry,” Jason’s shrunk, confidence swan diving out the windows. “I’m still learning names, faces, y’know… relations. You’re his kid right—” Jason tapped his toes at the water puddling at his feet— “the real one? I’m Jason.”

“I know,” He tossed Jason a kitchen towel. “And it depends on how you define ‘real one’. I’d heard a rumor you’re number three.” He grabbed his journal and slid it back into the bookcase. “Just from a little birdie.”

“Bruce isn’t my dad.”

“It is rude to rub such things in,” Damian sat on the sofa “Nevertheless, you’re not the first one to say as such. Beware, his fatherly aspects tend to be parasitic. By obligation, I also have to warn if the nightlife’s too much, give it up.”

“Nightlife? Bruce confiscated my fake. Until the new one comes in, I’m benched.”

Jason slouched in the middle of the studio apartment. Eyes darting around. Damian blinked, waiting for him to make himself at home in the way Tim used to. When he didn’t, Damian cleared the seat beside him. Jason cautiously took it.

“Already benched? If my father has learned anything, he’ll keep you there. Birds shouldn’t be breaking teeth if you know what I mean.”

“Yes?”

“Just know I do not condone this lifestyle.”

“Erm— sorry. I guess.”

Damian went to get a glass of milk from the fridge; Jason would need stronger bones. God knows Damian could never successfully discourage him. Might as well improve his chances. He started to pour trying to not think of the red hoodie in the back of his closet.

“Yes. You’re far too young.” He handed Jason the milk. Jason scrunched his nose and promptly put it on the table.

This child was setting himself up for failure.

“What brings you here today?”

Jason rubbed his neck. “Bruce was sorta mad today. He said some stuff about seeing you in town. I was curious, so I took a bus and left a note for Alfie.”

A note? A note. He’d left a note. How terribly responsible.

“You left a note?” It wasn’t Jason’s fault, he didn’t know Bruce well enough yet. “Seems I’ll be getting a visit from my father tonight… regretfully.” Why did he have to leave a note? He did not want to talk to his father.

Jason shrunk further. Damian hadn’t meant to sound angry. He looked around the room, desperate to placate the situation. He turned his attention back to the untouched milk.

“Does Pennyworth not make you drink milk? Calcium is important.”

“Alfie’s not here.” The two stared at each other. Damian blinked at him, Jason blinked back. Damian picked up the cup, thrusting it towards him. Jason hid his hands behind his back. “I don’t want anything to drink.”

“Do you want to die?” Damian seethed. “Drink your goddamn milk.”

Jason took it and began to sip.

They sat like that for a bit. Damian wouldn’t let this child self-sabotage. Maybe he had an extra sword he could give him. Or some pepper spray. Yes, pepper spray would be good; in fact, he had some extra in his belt all he had to do was go grab it and–

“What happened between you and Bruce?”

Damian stalled. Of course, his father hadn’t talked about his first failure. It was wonder enough Jason even knew of his existence. Though that could have just been from the boy eavesdropping and reading the tabloids.

Damian hated the tabloids.

“Well I had a falling out with him as Robin, so I left Batman to be Nightwing.” He said, keeping it brief and simple. Best not to expand into too much family drama during their first official meeting.

Jason dropped his milk, spilling it all over the couch.

“I understand you don’t like milk, but that’s no reason to stain my couch. Look at this mess.”

The boy didn't respond. Not at first. His head turned jerkily up at Damian, something that could be described as wonder in his eyes. He whispered four words. Four horrible, truly terrible words.

“Bruce Wayne is Batman?”

_Crap. Crap. Crap._

He’d messed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys think!


	5. Pulling an Oopsie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian should think things out more.

Surely Jason was pulling his leg. A bit of banter as the boy tried to establish himself as a new brotherly figure in Damian’s life. A clever child; no wonder Bruce had chosen him to replace Tim. Nevertheless, Damian wouldn’t relent.

“Obviously. You wouldn’t be Robin and not know,” Damian grumbled. “Now cease this… poorly executed gag. And clean up the mess you made. I don’t want it to curdle.” 

“I’m gonna be Robin?!”

“As if you already aren’t.”

“This is so sick!”

His determination was rather—how to put it? Impressively persistent. Regardless of Jason’s resolve, Damian was not in the mood for jokes. Much less ones that needled into his brain, bread-crumbing doubt about.

In his opinion, Tim had spent too much time joking around. And, although correlation and causation don’t necessarily overlap, one of them was six-feet deep and the other was barely affording his studio apartment.

Though it was a matter of opinion for who was worse off. 

“Todd, I don’t think you understand. I’ve realized this joke you were trying to make. It was not funny, so please stop.”

Jason stopped fist-pumping the air. His lopsided grin made Damian’s stomach sour. “Do I seem like I’m joking?” He went back to appealing his invisible audience. A wave here; an air kiss there. 

Damian had—how would Stephanie phrase it—pulled a rather large oopsie.

Thank god for Alfred and improv. 

“Tt. I suppose not… In that case, I retract my previous statement. Bruce Wayne is not Batman. It was I who was pulling your leg. I know how devious of me; hold your laughter.”

Showstopping. An oscar worthy appeal.

“I’m gonna be Robin!”

Perhaps not. 

“Ok, no. You don’t seem to get it. Care for me to explain?”

“I’m gonna be Robin.”

Jason had settled to sitting on the coffee table atop a pile of newspapers. He kicked his legs back and forth. Damian scrunched his nose. Had no one taught this child?

Damian shifted papers out of the way and sat next to him. He patted Jason’s knee twice. “Yes, that’s where you’re getting confused. Now work backwards from that--”

Jason leapt to his feet, the coffee table as his soap box. “Hell yeah! Hell yeah! Hell yeah!”

“Watch your mouth,” Damian scowled. “You’ve lost your manners and spout nonsense.”

Jason’s excitement melted off his face. “What’s your problem? This is like the best day of my life but you’re being an absolute ass.”

Best day of his life? Damian would have never understood Jason’s excitement—or even Tim’s—if he had never worn the mask himself. If he hadn't run the rooftops, alleyways, and streets as well.

Those colors, that red, green, and yellow, they did something. 

Damian was sick with nostalgia. His memories should have been tainted—so much death and rapture followed his legacy—but they weren't. For when he thought of his run, before he chastised himself, he thought of a little boy who had seen too much; a misguided child who’d found a hero in his father.

But to meet your idols is to sully them. Thus was his feeling of loss: the loss of his father, his name, his brethren. 

Perhaps he deserved that loss. He reckoned only a monster could associate joy with something that hurt had so many.

And monsters deserved to be brought to justice did they not?

“So you wish for a golden bullet between your eyes or a molotov with a silken cloth. This is not a present under the tree. This is life and death.”

“What have I got to worry about?” Jason asked, sitting back down beside him.” You already took out the Joker.”

The Joker. Even in death he tortured him. Some days Damian wished he had drawn it out for that creature, but he had acted rashly; with passion.

It happens.

“I did not,” Damian scowled. “You should be careful with the slander you spread, others aren’t as graciously lenient”

“Or humble.” Jason crossed his arms. “It’s whatever though. I’m not going to croak or anything.”

Never again.

Damian slapped his hands on the table. “You’re not going to die. I forbid it.”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck. Damian brought his hands back to his lap. He did not care about the expression Jason gave him: one of uncertainty and displeasure. Besides, it was better this way. Damian had let Tim get too comfortable—too close. Only the insane repeat the same actions expecting different results and Damian refused to have the same results.

Never again.

The awkwardness coagulated into a heavy air, cutting off Damian’s air supply. He found himself breathing heavier than usual; as though he was on a mission in the Amazon where the humidity would hold quarter in his throat. 

The silence deafened to the point, Alfred the Cat nudged a single eye open; it settled on Jason. Alfred perked up. Following an impressive stretch, he bounced towards the couch.  He quirked his head after sniffing Jason’s leg and recoiled.

“Hey, kitty.” Jason let Alfred sniff his fingers. 

Alfred rubbed against Jason’s leg. The boy laughed lightly, leaning down to scratch behind the cat’s ear.

Damian found animals were much better judges of characters than himself.

“He liked Drake too. Do not go feeling special.” Damian held out his hand for Alfred to rub against.

“Was _he_ Robin?” Jason asked.

“He is a cat, Todd.”

“You know what I mean.”

Damian twiddled his fingers together. He needed some water.

“I knew it!” Welp. Jason was back to standing on the table. Lovely. It took a moment for him to settle, but when he did, he patted Damian’s knee back. “Sorry, I accused you of killing the Joker”

“Pardon?”

“Come on, dude. All of Gotham knows you hated him.”

Hated him. He had to. He had tried to. Though certain people refused to let people hate them. Any positive emotion Damian had felt was caused by Tim’s tenacity—Damian hadn't a say in the matter. None.

All of Gotham? Rather harsh.

Jason glanced at Damian, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Do you like me?”

“Not particularly.”

The boy sunk. “Oh,” He jumped off the table, chest puffed out; invisible cape flapping behind him. “Whatever. I don’t care or anything. Robin’s too cool for that.”

Damian’s brain was hurting. This child hurt his brain. “You will never be Robin.”

“Seconded.” 

Damian’s breath hitched. Is this what it felt like to accept death? 

Taking up the entirety of his doorway was Bruce Wayne in his wrinkle-free, storm grey suit. His eyebrows had furrowed into the ground and, judging from his expression, Damian may not live much longer. 

His father entered his apartment without permission.

Damian knew many theorized that Batman was a vampire. Pathetic really; a demonstration of the dull-wittedness of those he’d ever so cordially protected. His father entered too many places unwelcomed to be a vampire.

Bruce Wayne was also an infamous sunbather.

His father led Jason by the arm out of Damian’s apartment. “Go join Alfred in the car. I’ll be there shortly.”

It was a light grip; one that had been used on him and Tim. He’d turned fatherly rather quickly. Damian briefly wondered if Tim and Jason would have gotten along. They were both insatiable pests with the common interest of bugging him.

Damian dug his fingernails into his palm. It’s not as if he’d ever know Tim’s opinion. All he knew was that his father had moved on quickly. 

As he always did. 

“Wait! He didn’t mean to tell me, promise.” Jason pulled his arm back.

“Go to the car.”

“But—”

“Go.”

Jason sulked out of the room. His stomps echoed down the hallway till they fell silent. Damian swallowed his anxieties and rose to meet his father. His gaze cold, distant, unforgiving—

Disappointed.

“You told him? After what happened to Tim?” His father asked.

“His deduction skills are well preened. It was a matter of time…I might as well have told him before you,” Damian straightened his posture. “I will not have you drawing him in with false grandeur.”

“He was not going to know about it.”

Damian laughed; it was dry and burned his throat. “Do not humor yourself, Father. You are far above such naivety. Was it not I who wasn’t supposed to be Robin either? Did you not protest Drake’s uptake of the mantle as well?” 

His father looked away, hands clamped at his sides.

“To imply Jason would be any different is to disregard the trend,” Damian said.

“Tim already knew about Batman.” His words were slow and calculated.

Damian held his hands on his hips. “You have the willpower of a toothpick.” 

“Don’t twist the situation. _You_ told Jason about Robin. After Robin got Tim killed, you were the one who willfully told Jason.”

_You told Jason. You didn’t help Tim that night. You’re going to get Jason killed too._

The words corroded his skull till bits of grey matter slipped out. The accusations against Damian made his skull split. He wanted to sleep till the thoughts stopped ping-ponging about. Though he could not let it slip—his growing headache.

The Batman feasted on fear.

His father headed towards the door. “I have to get Jason home,” He paused  in the doorway for a moment. His father’s eyes were slightly watery. “Y’know, I thought some part of you was lying when you said you hated him.  I really did.”

“I don’t lie. It’s impolite.”

“Goodbye, Damian.”

“Father?”

His father left, shutting the door behind him. 

The door was broad and impassive. Though, despite its inactivity, it mocked him. His father used to linger during his visits. Was Damian not worth it anymore? Had his father’s opinion of him sunk that low to that he was not even deserving of a proper scolding.

Damian started to clean up the milk, feeling inexplicably… empty?

Yes. Empty, that was it.

Alfred scratched at where Jason had been sitting, meowing. Damian smiled, leaning over to pat his head. “I know. I liked him too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story will be have more angst than other ones I’ve written. I’ll try to counteract it with some light hearted scenes so it doesn’t get too heavy. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed it <3


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